Meet the dwarf galago

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Photos:Meet the dwarf galago

The dwarf galago – Scientists at Oxford Brookes University, UK have discovered a new, small and wide-eyed primate in the forests of Angola called the dwarf galago.

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Photos:Meet the dwarf galago

The dwarf galago – The researchers spotted it thanks to its distinctive call -- a loud, chirping crescendo of longer notes, followed by a fading twitter, used to attract mates and scare rivals away.

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Photos:Meet the dwarf galago

The dwarf galago – "We've got a big sound library which is how we were able to identify anything that's different", says Simon Bearder, pictured above, professor emeritus in anthropology, Oxford Brookes University and president of the Primate Society of Great Britain.

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Photos:Meet the dwarf galago

The dwarf galago – The dwarf galago also has a distinctive appearance with a longer face than the other galagos, which the team identified using a photo library of all known primate species.

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Photos:Meet the dwarf galago

The dwarf galago – The new Angolan species' Latin name is 'galagoides kumbirensis', after the Kumbira forest where it was first observed.

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Photos:Meet the dwarf galago

The dwarf galago – Although the dwarf galago was just discovered, it is already at risk of becoming extinct because its habitat, the Angolan Central Escarpment Forest, is under threat from human activities.

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Photos:Meet the dwarf galago

The dwarf galago – "It is worrying that a species we've only just discovered could well disappear within the next few years. It might have gone completely unnoticed," Magdalena Svensson, one of the primate researchers on the trip, says.